Written by

Margaret F. Bonafide
| @mfbonafide

Thousands of black plastic bags filled with Jewish religious artifacts line a dirt road in the woods off Vermont Avenue near where Larry Simons lives.

Nearby, 10 tractor-trailers sit filled with the bags, recently unearthed from their burial ground. The bags are part of an Orthodox Jewish custom known as shaimos, where artifacts that are of no more use must be buried.

"The whole thing troubles me because, one, I am Jewish," the 76-year-old Simons said, as he walked past the piles of bags. "As a Jewish person, I do not like to be denigrated. But when (I see) what I perceive as an abuse ... of the law, ...